Lost Shadows
by Miss Yvonne Hartman
Summary: He kisses with as much violence as he can fit into the plunder of her mouth, pulling her into his ocean, tangling his hands in her hair as together they swim down into the blue. Tollie


Lost Shadows

All the shadows of their tarnished past tangle in her chest, and lie like thumb tacks, jabbing in with every beat of her heart, filling her with a sharp, metallic pain. Tollie

Very strong T. I don't own Smallville

AN: Having Déjà vu? I have given all my works an edit, spit and polish and reposted, so enjoy and please review – Y xx

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The lake and park were enclosed with a high gate, all these borders and boundaries, designed to keep her out, or cage her in. Tess, dismayed, put a hand on the cold bar. "Oliver, we should go." She said, looking into the darkness of the area for everything she knew by day. A lawn, with children's swing sets; a copse of trees and the long expanse of cool water, all lost in the night.

Oliver looked at her sideways, "Why?"

She gestured at the fence, a 'duh' like look in her eyes, "Because there's a great bloody fence in the way." She said flatly.

He laughed a little, "That's nothing to people like us, Tess!" and he gave her his jacket and began to climb the fence.

"What are you doing? We'll get arrested!" she hissed, looking up and down the street for signs of descending police. Oliver gave her a very smug grin as he landed on his feet, smiling at her from the opposite side.

"Then you better kiss me through the bars, as practice for when we're in jail." He said smoothly. Tess laughed at him, angling herself away slightly before she just smiled and leant in to meet his mouth. His lips are hot and the fence is a band of ice on her cheek. When she pulled back he grinned, "are you coming over or just standing there?" he waited for her, "Come on, Tess. You can own this world."

There's that dangerous glint to his eyes and she kicks off her heels, chucking them over the fence. She has no idea where they've landed as she uses Oliver's cupped hands to step on and swing over the top of the fence, down into his arms. Her heart flutters with the thrill of rebellion, he inspires it in her and she lets it smoulder away and fill her up with the reckless feeling she'd known intimately in her youth. He kisses her, she burns and his hands run over her skin, exposed in the backless evening dress.

She can't see her shoes anywhere so she follows Oliver barefoot into the darkness, the grass wet with dew, soaking the hem of the long dress that fluttered around her ankles. "So. Now that you have me alone." She says in her sultry voice, "Whatever will you do with me?"

He laughs and grabs her small hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it, pulling her back to his side. "Just walk with me, Mercy, for a little bit."

Her teeth gleam as she smiles the smile of a Cheshire Cat or a Noh Mask, at once enigmatic and painfully candid. It sends a twinge up his spine. He sees her shiver with cold and he enfolds her in his suit jacket. She can smell him in the collar and cuffs and she slips her hand into his, he hugs her to his side as they cross the lawn.

They step into the deeper, matte darkness of trees, Tess letting go of his hand to walk ahead, holding on to the branches above her as she swings around slowly, gazing up at the dappled starlight through the leaves. He steps forward to catch her in the slow curve her body makes through the empty space, meeting her lips for a deep kiss, his hands in her hair, on her back, her arms. She shivers under his travelling touch, remembering when she was younger and he could set her soul on fire. She angles her mouth away, dragging a messy kiss to the side of his lips and to his ear.

Emotions bloom in her chest and fade away as quickly as snowflakes melt, all of the thoughts and feelings, all the shadows of their tarnished past tangle in her chest, and lie like thumb tacks, jabbing in with every beat of her heart, filling her with a sharp, metallic pain. She loves him to the point of pain, she knows that much, but she steps away, almost unable to bear the old memories and long forgotten feelings that she had bottled up, drifting between the trees like a shadow.

He follows her at a distance, and eventually catches up with her, standing on the jetty that extends into the inky black lake. "Tess." He says quietly to announce his presence. She looks at him over her shoulder, her elegant profile highlighted, a different kind of darkness to the blue night.

"Oliver Queen." She sighed, "I remember you offered me the world once."

"I'd give it to you again, Mercy." He whispered hoarsely.

She stepped the side of the wooden boardwalk and dropped to the pebbly ground below, the rocks crunching as she landed. He followed, the sound of the water louder, the steady rush, and found her turning slowly under the jetty with her fingers hooked into the gaps in the wooden boards above her head. He closed the space between them in the cool air.

"Hit me." She breathes, when his lips are close to hers.

He's not unaccustomed to her mood swings, he's seen them all. He's seen the ragged pantomime that she is, a gorgeous clash of emotion that he wants to be swept away in. A twilight fairground, of thrill rides and fireworks. Carousels in her eyes and a Ferris wheel heart. And he has loved her all the more.

He kisses her instead, he can make her feel a lot of things, but he can't strike her achingly beautiful face. So he kisses with as much violence as he can fit into the plunder of her mouth, pulling her into his ocean, tangling his hands in her hair as they swim down into the blue.

"Is this what you want?" he pants and presses his mouth to hers again and bites her lower lip until he can hear her hiss and intake of breath.

"I just want to feel something. You used to make me feel such _wonderful_ things…" She answers; her voice like gravel, it grates over him coarsely.

His little, ragged, bitter beauty, she sighs and tilts her head expectantly. He walks her back until she hits against one of the pier's support posts. He ravished her mouth, barely giving her a chance to breathe. She slides her hands over his back, letting him devour her and make her remember how she could feel. The shadows of their younger selves, those beautiful messes of angst and emotion, burst into bloom in the clash of their mouths. Lost shadows that owned the universe. Skin kisses skin, her pale body covered by his taking the marks left by his lips. Tess tilts her head back to look past Oliver, to the stars blurring into a single band of brilliant, white light.

Oliver's strong hands on her ribs bring her back down as she slowly feels her feet touch the pebbled ground, with him holding her up in the long minutes or hours that they stared into the other's shadowed face and tried to catch their breath. And feel all of those sparkling stars fade out of her fingertips, leaving her as nothing but a vivisection, rent apart and hollowed. She drowns in the brilliant empty spaces he creates in her, where light shines from distant suns that burnt out long ago. Where time and space compressed the universe into a ball so he could present it to her in cupped hands and show her everything they could own, and the people they could be.

"Tess." His voice said softly, calling to her from a thousand miles away. She can't hear him anymore. "Tess, come back to me."

There were once times when she'd try to hold on to the way he could make her feel. To take those jewel bright emotions and force them into jars, like captured butterflies. Sometimes she would bring those old emotions out on rainy days, and hope to feel the fluttering of those paper-thin feelings beat like wings in the cage of her fingers. She used to, when she was younger, willing to believe that she still had a grip on that crumpled ball of the universe he'd offered her so easily in her youth.

Now she just feels foolish, to be clutching empty jam jars in evening's cold blue light.

_Fin_


End file.
